A Plantation Act (1926) User Reviews

Why Doesn't This Get Recognized?

[ccthemovieman-1 · 6/10 · 19 January 2008]

Al Jolson, in black-face, sings three of his songs in this short musical feature. All it is, is Jolson standing in front of a rural prop (a mural, with a chicken or two walking around) and belting out three numbers. In between, he gives a few thanks yous and comments.

"Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody" starts it off and is my personal favorite of the three. The second number is a much slower tune, "April Showers," and the finale is the upbeat "When The Red-Red Robin comes Bob Bob Bobbin' Along"

In between the second and third songs, Jolson gives a few comments. The ending to this is very strange. The picture stops a few times and picks back up each time with Jolson taking more bows and blowing kisses. Then we see an "Intermission" graphic posted, and that's the end!

What's puzzling to me is the question, "Why isn't this film (albeit very short, and no story) considered the first "talkie?" This came out a year before Jolson's "The Jazz Singer." You not only hear Jolson sing, but talk.....so why doesn't that qualify as a "talkie?"

Whatever. The fact is the man could flat-out sing and this is a nice piece of history. It's a bonus feature on the DVD recently released of "The Jazz Singer."

Very early "talkie"

[jtyroler · 6/10 · 21 December 2006]

This was released about a year before "The Jazz Singer", which has Jolson in black-face. Jolson appears in black-face, wearing a wig and rags and a sound stage shack. This is interesting to see and hear Al Jolson as people would have seen him in the mid-1920's, although because of (most likely) limits of the Vitaphone system, Jolson doesn't seem all that animated. It's also interesting to watch to see how society dealt with racial stereotypes in the first half of the 20th century, about 60 years after the end of the American Civil War. Jolson was an extremely popular artist of the time and the songs are classic Americana - "When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob-Bob-Bobbin' Along", "April Showers", and "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody". Recordings by Al Jolson are so synonymous with the Roaring 20's that these songs, eighty years later, still evoke that time.

When Al Jolson came strolling out of that cotton field . . .

[tadpole-596-918256 · 6/10 · 7 May 2013]

. . . I can't say I was as moved as when "Shoeless Joe" Jackson parted the corn in FIELD OF DREAMS. Al Jolson's performance in A PLANTATION ACT is pretty pedestrian compared to his amazing star turn in THE JAZZ SINGER, as one might expect, since A PLANTATION ACT was essentially an audition tape for the subsequent feature film. No doubt there were other vaudeville acts Warner Brothers was holding in reserve if Jolson in Blackface as a tortured sixth generation synagogue cantor on the lam from his Brooklyn roots did not pan out. But of course this short apparently was better enough than the alternatives that Jolson's Jakie\Jack Robin character DID pan out, and the rest, as they say, is history (not unlike Jackie Robinson going up to Montreal for a season to play for the minor league Royals; if HE hadn't panned out, Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey might have had Roy Campanella up his sleeve--but #42 DID!).

Jolson's Real Debut In Films

[CitizenCaine · 16 May 2009]

A Plantation Act with Al Jolson served as a precursor to The Jazz Singer, which was released a year later. Jolson trots out his minstrel act in front of a southern farm stage set, complete with black-face wearing a raggedy outfit. He sings three of his signature songs: Rock-a-bye your baby with a Dixie melody, April Showers, and When the red, red robin comes bob, bob bobbin' along. He takes a couple bows and then the fade out. Another reviewer mentioned the odd ending with the fade out and in and out again, simply to see Jolson take a couple more bows. The word intermission shows up clearly at the end. This appears to be a print spliced together from a theater showing possibly. Often projectionists were known to splice film together in the silent era to suit a particular theater's purpose. This may explain why there are no opening or closing credits either. It might be because this film was cut to fit a time slot during intermission between features at one point.

Al Jolson made this short, A Plantation Act, before his feature debut in The Jazz Singer

[tavm · 7/10 · 1 December 2012]

This Vitaphone musical short was Al Jolson's first film for the company and Warner Bros., the distributor, about a year before his feature debut for them in The Jazz Singer. He's on a farm in overalls and the burnt cork makeup that covers him in blackface. Very unacceptable today but part of the culture of the time, that makeup was part of Jolson's persona as one of his best known songs was "Mammy". Here, he sings "When the Red-Red-Robin Comes Bob-Bob-Bobbin' Along", "April Showers", and "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody". Like I said, I find his makeup uncomfortable but his performance of the songs are good enough for this film's worthy preservation. And dig the end when he bows and the film fades out...only to fade in with him continuing to bow before fading out...only to once again, well, you get the idea. So on that note, A Plantation Act is worth a look.

Not racist, but not very interesting either

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 10 August 2015]

You ain't heard nothing yet. So hear this one and sadly you still haven't heard nothing yet. Unfortunately the music is nothing too special here, but still the best aspect about these 10 minutes. It's an interesting watch to see what music videos looked like almost 90 years ago. Famous singer Al Jolson wears blackface here and fittingly they chose a farm as the location where Jolson as a farmworker sings a handful songs while gesturing wildly. People maybe will consider this racist, but with all the makeup work and costume design from previous decades I can not really agree. Nobody should really be offended by this. But almost nobody will be amazed either. A fairly boring watch in my opinion. Not recommended.

Al Jolson's Talking Film Debut

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 4 August 2000]

Al Jolson made cinematic history in 1927, when he sang some songs & ad-libbed a few lines of dialogue, in the motion picture THE JAZZ SINGER - the first feature film with audible dialogue. What is not generally known, however, is that Jolson actually made his talkie debut the year earlier, in 1926, in a short entitled A PLANTATION ACT.

When sound-on-film was absolutely brand new, a large number of shorts were shot, mainly in New York, of various performers showing off their (mostly musical) talents. It was only natural that Jolson, the greatest Broadway star of the era, should be chosen to appear in one of these tiny films.

Rarely seen today, A PLANTATION ACT showcases Jolie at the height of his fame. He appears in rags, wig & blackface to sing three of the songs most closely associated with him - `When The Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbing Along', `April Showers' & `Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody'. He freely ad-libs dialogue between the songs & appears to be enjoying himself immensely - even though the restrictions of the microphone and the static camera require him to keep still & not move about.

The blackface makeup was Jolie's trademark for decades and should be seen in the context of the times. Rather than being racist, which here it is not, it is a salute to an older musical tradition. Jolson, to all intents & purposes, was the last of the great minstrels.

Primarily for Vocal Interest

[aciolino · 8/10 · 14 January 2005]

The Plantation Act gives us an excellent opportunity to hear Jolson's voice as it sounded during his prolific Broadway run. And to judge, even by this 1925 recording, his voice is astonishing. It is rich, complex, and very, very powerful. Pay particular attention to the end of "April Showers." Jolson performs some amazing vocal pyrotechnics, impossible for any other pop singer I've ever heard, a long note on the word, "come," he actually changes the timbre of his voice in a way I have not heard from any other singer. It is truly remarkable.

One does get the sense that Jolson is particularly uncomfortable in front of the camera (as he would be for the remainder of his career). He seems to want to break out and bound around the stage, as he would have in a real show. It is nevertheless worth hearing just for his voice.

An amazing early sound film

[planktonrules · 10/10 · 22 January 2010]

This short consists of Al Jolson standing in front of a set designed to look like a plantation home of a slave--and not surprisingly, he performs in black-face. It's on a stage, but I was impressed by the amount of detail on the set, as the background painting was great, the cabin looked real and a live chicken walked about as Jolson sang.

It begins with the song "When the Red, Red Robin comes Bob-Bob-Bobbin Along" and is followed by "April Showers" and "Rockabye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody". Between each song Jolson talks a bit and introduces the songs.

While people no doubt will be aghast at a minstrel show, it was a widely accepted sort of performance at the time and people just didn't think or care about how harmful such a stereotypical performance could be. It was a product of the times and can't be completely ignored just because it makes people uncomfortable--especially since this is such a super-important film to our film history. This is especially true since this short pre-dates Jolson's performance in the seminal film "The Jazz Singer".

Technically speaking this is an amazing film. It has exceptionally good sound for such an early film, gorgeous sets and wonderful cinematography and is a must for anyone who considers themselves to be a cinephile.

This film, by the way, was included on the first of three disks with the DVD release of "The Jazz Singer"--a marvelous collection of early talkies as well as documentaries.

Better Than The Jazz Singer

[Michael_Elliott · 27 February 2008]

Plantation Act, A (1926)

*** (out of 4)

Al Jolson in an early Vitaphone talkie has him in blackface doing three songs with a Southern backdrop. This was a big hit for Warner and led to The Jazz Singer getting made so there's a historic aspect here but the film works well on its own as Jolson is very lively and the three songs are quite good.

This film is pretty much forgotten today but I think it's a lot more enjoyable than The Jazz Singer, which would be released the following year. You can view this short on The Jazz Singer 3-disc set.

Vitaphone Short Demonstrates Sound

[springfieldrental · 8/10 · 16 March 2022]

Casual film fans think the transition from silent to sound films began instantaneously in October 1927 with Al Jolson's release of "The Jazz Singer." Technically, however, the era of popular sound-on-film (or more accurately here, sound-on-disc) could be pegged exactly a year earlier when Warner Brothers projected a series of short films using the Vitaphone system on October 7, 1926, at the Colony Theater in New York City before showing its feature film, 'The Better 'Ole,' the second feature film with a musical soundtrack. The short films preceding the Sydney Chaplin (Charlie's brother) lead role film was highlighted by Roy Smeck, the Wizard of the Strings in "His Pastimes" and Al Jolson's "A Plantation Act," which not only included a couple of his songs but a talking segment by the singer bridging the tunes.

These short films fronting 'The Better 'Ole' especially held the attention to the appreciative audience. The series proved the technology of sound was more than just a theory and that the technology of Vitaphone, with its ability to provide superior recording quality and crisp amplification of studio audio into the theater was clearly the leader in the four competing sound systems for the cinema market.

Unfortunately for Warner Brothers, theaters during that time didn't totally embrace the expensive machinery with its speakers required to play the audio of "The Better 'Ole." The Warners had aimed for 350 Vitaphone systems installed nationwide in the year 1927, but by March 1927 only 51 were placed in theaters-and the momentum for orders was drastically slowing. John Barrymore's "Don Juan," the first feature film to be accompanied by a musical recorded track, was successful at the box office, causing a bump in sales. But with "The Better 'Ole's" disappointing ticket receipts, some movie house owners who purchased the system, such as the Kentucky Theater in Lexington, played only the Vitaphone shorts. Others, like The Metropolitan Theater in Washington, D. C. pulled the system out altogether.

The Warner Brothers had laid out a large cache of money to buy the Western Electric's Bell Laboratories' Vitaphone system. In February 1927 they spent $1.6 million to rebuild Vitagraph's old Hollywood studio to produce movies with sound. They did release a smattering of feature films with the Vitaphone disc playing alongside the projectors in the next year. But the studio was banking on one film to deliver the pizzazz needed to really move the needle on audio movies.

Quite a find

[Goingbegging · 9/10 · 26 March 2017]

There is more than one claimant to the title of the world's first sound film. Strictly, Edison had managed it for a few seconds, back in the old century. Then there was the full-length 'Don Juan' feature, with synchronised orchestra but no speech. And finally Al Jolson in 'The Jazz Singer', basically a silent, but with several songs and just a snatch of dialogue, whose legendary opening at Warners Theatre, New York City in October 1927 went down as the official birth of the Talkies.

The previous year, Jolson was known to have made a ten-minute film that looked and sounded like a curtain raiser for 'The Jazz Singer', but it was assumed lost, and not till seventy years later did it come to light. This was 'A Plantation Act' - arguably the first all-talking, all-singing movie.

Video and audio were separate, and all in bits, so the correct sequence was not known, and there appears to have been more than one remastered version. The one I watched started with 'Red Red Robin', then 'April Showers', ending on 'Rockabye your Baby'. But maybe the order doesn't matter too much. In between, we get the usual "You ain't heard nothing yet!" - a signature-phrase that he first used (cheekily) when following Caruso on to a stage. Meanwhile it's not clear why the film is shown in a pinkish-mauve tint, but perhaps that doesn't matter either.

As the title indicates, the scene is a plantation with a wooden shack and a couple of chickens running around. This is, of course, the idealised happy-slave image of the minstrel tradition, complete with Mammy songs in which Jolson excelled. What is less well-known is that he originally hid behind black make-up because he was under-confident and nervous about appearing as himself.

Political correctness apart, 'A Plantation Act' is a historic record of minstrelsy, with Jolson at the peak of his form, every note sharp and clean, with interesting echoes of his early training as a cantor in the synagogue.

We don't need to point out that the Mason-Dixon line was nowhere near Tennessee or Virginia. But I've always wished I could have been around to re-write '...listening for his song/whenever April showers come along' as 'listening for his call/whenever April showers start to fall'.